How a robust economy and ongoing peace talks are nudging the international art world to pay attention to Colombian artists

FOR YEARS, NO ONE CAME to Doris Salcedo's studio in Bogotá, Colombia, to watch her twist rickety bed frames into haunting sculptures. In Medellín, José Antonio Suárez Londoño worked in similar isolation, filling notebooks with tiny drawings while he listened to gruesome radio reports about cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar. Farther north, Gabriel Sierra grew up in the lush countryside fearing government soldiers and guerrillas alike, learning nothing about art except what he saw in encyclopedias. And yet still he drew.